Proposal for new speech based pet control command

Comments

• Lord_Frodo Posts: 2,428

  June 2

  Please do NOT break the pet command spaghetti code, that code is as old as UO
• keven2002 Posts: 2,317

  June 2

  Lord_Frodo said:

  Please do NOT break the pet command spaghetti code, that code is as old as UO

  No need to worry, the Dev team isn't going to make any sort of major changes to anything in UO that isn't NL anytime soon. 

  
  

  We have the pirate hats for another month, then "summer break" where we get nothing new, then supposedly NL, then a repeat of Halloween/Krampus/Artisan Festival, then nothing for at least the first 3 months of next year.
• Pawain Posts: 10,200

  June 2 edited June 2

  Yup ∆ correct.  Bladeweave pets have offense and defense modes.  But we can not easily access the gump to click.
  

  Focus on what you can do, not what you can't.
• Kyronix Posts: 1,200Dev

  June 2

  Thanks for the suggestion.  The practicality of giving this much granular control to pet abilities is pretty limited from a development perspective.  Nothing is theoretically impossible, but this would require a massive amount of auditing since unfortunately all the spell schools and special abilities are not uniformly implemented. 
  
• Pawain Posts: 10,200

  June 3

  Kyronix said:

  Thanks for the suggestion.  The practicality of giving this much granular control to pet abilities is pretty limited from a development perspective.  Nothing is theoretically impossible, but this would require a massive amount of auditing since unfortunately all the spell schools and special abilities are not uniformly implemented. 
  

  Allow us to put bladeweave pets in their mode. Make the gump so we can use it.  That is already in the game but too difficult to do the trick to see the modes.

  Focus on what you can do, not what you can't.
• username Posts: 938

  June 3 edited June 3

  keven2002 said:

  No need to worry, the Dev team isn't going to make any sort of major changes to anything in UO that isn't NL anytime soon. 

  
  

  We have the pirate hats for another month, then "summer break" where we get nothing new, then supposedly NL, then a repeat of Halloween/Krampus/Artisan Festival, then nothing for at least the first 3 months of next year.

  It's hard to believe they've gotten away with this for 4-5 years and the bootlickers cheer each time we get a new ToT copy/paste event. Then again, I have seen several major guilds across most shards collapse due to lack of online players so in the end they're paying the price for it. 
  
  IF NL does get released somewhere in your timeline there (I doubt it) it will be either devoid of content and/or a major flop and we'll see a big shift in the staff for Ultima... how will they explain something they announced ~5 years ago and have been working on for the best part of that time failing? Remember, this was something NO ONE ASKED FOR and what in my opinion was direct announcement after people had been asking for a classic server forever and WoW released it's classic server. Mesanna will retire/be fired (I believe she's in her mid/late 60's as it is) and the staff 'shuffle' could either be the end of the game or the best thing that'll ever happen. If I were Broadsword, I'd hire people that develop for the free shards/3rd party clients. I hear more people leaving for Outlands weekly than I've heard looking forward to NL in the last 3+ years.

  This discussion has been closed.
  
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• ForeverFun Posts: 919

  June 3

  Kyronix said:

  Thanks for the suggestion.  The practicality of giving this much granular control to pet abilities is pretty limited from a development perspective.  Nothing is theoretically impossible, but this would require a massive amount of auditing since unfortunately all the spell schools and special abilities are not uniformly implemented. 
  

  
  

  Perhaps an incremental approach would work well, where these capabilities phase in over time?

  
  

  e.g. start with "specialmoves", two in particular:

  
  

  all action disable specialmove bleed_id
  all action disable specialmove coldwind_id
  

  Where "bleed_id" and "coldwind_id" correspond to a string or number identifying the moves.

  
  

  Just adding controls over those 2 special moves would likely be celebrated.
  

  
  

  (note this should only influence when the pet code determines whether to execute a specific move).    If the disable bits are never set, no behavior changes.

  
  

  Some posters on this forum raise the game code age as a reason why changes aren't happening.  Hopefully, that isn't true.  The developers associated with common operating systems today would likely disagree with that logic.
  
• Pawain Posts: 10,200

  June 3 edited June 3

  The difficulty of a change is irrelevant.  Look at NL.
  Maybe like many other things, the devs Don't want to change this.  Do pets kill stuff now?  Yes. Remember when Mesanna promised the complaining GD owners that the new pets would not make their GDs obsolete? 
  
  Well they are, maybe they want to stop the power at this point.

  Focus on what you can do, not what you can't.
• Kyronix Posts: 1,200Dev

  June 4

  ForeverFun said:

  Kyronix said:

  Thanks for the suggestion.  The practicality of giving this much granular control to pet abilities is pretty limited from a development perspective.  Nothing is theoretically impossible, but this would require a massive amount of auditing since unfortunately all the spell schools and special abilities are not uniformly implemented. 
  

  
  

  Perhaps an incremental approach would work well, where these capabilities phase in over time?

  
  

  e.g. start with "specialmoves", two in particular:

  
  

  all action disable specialmove bleed_id
  all action disable specialmove coldwind_id
  

  Where "bleed_id" and "coldwind_id" correspond to a string or number identifying the moves.

  
  

  Just adding controls over those 2 special moves would likely be celebrated.
  

  
  

  (note this should only influence when the pet code determines whether to execute a specific move).    If the disable bits are never set, no behavior changes.

  
  

  Some posters on this forum raise the game code age as a reason why changes aren't happening.  Hopefully, that isn't true.  The developers associated with common operating systems today would likely disagree with that logic.
  

  
  

  There's definitely more feasibility in a specific change to address a single issue you may be facing.  Incremental change is much more efficient then entire system audits.  So if you can boil it down into a digestible user story, we can take a look. 
  

  
  

  The age of the code base isn't necessarily the problem - it's more so how many hands have been in the repository over the years.  Sometimes systems were implemented in haste, sometimes before functionality was available (Fun fact: before there was a (-) many operations to get -1 were written as 0-1) and sometimes without efficiency at the forefront.  Anyone who has spent a while on project will no doubt evolve their thinking and methodology.  Some of the original stuff I wrote 10+ years ago I look at and go...who wrote this?!...oh...right.  But that's part of learning and growing.
  

  
  

  Anyway, we have to take that into consideration when we are looking at major overhauls because it's an obvious risk that impacts practicality. 
  
• keven2002 Posts: 2,317

  June 4

  Kyronix said:

  Anyone who has spent a while on project will no doubt evolve their thinking and methodology.  Some of the original stuff I wrote 10+ years ago I look at and go...who wrote this?!...oh...right.  But that's part of learning and growing.
  

  
  

  Anyway, we have to take that into consideration when we are looking at major overhauls because it's an obvious risk that impacts practicality. 
  

  
  Props to you Kyronix for this post. Appreciate the candor and transparency of what you are saying; and more importantly I appreciate the response.
  
• Skett Posts: 1,561

  June 4

  
• ForeverFun Posts: 919

  June 4

  Kyronix said:

  ForeverFun said:

  Kyronix said:

  Thanks for the suggestion.  The practicality of giving this much granular control to pet abilities is pretty limited from a development perspective.  Nothing is theoretically impossible, but this would require a massive amount of auditing since unfortunately all the spell schools and special abilities are not uniformly implemented. 
  

  
  

  Perhaps an incremental approach would work well, where these capabilities phase in over time?

  
  

  e.g. start with "specialmoves", two in particular:

  
  

  all action disable specialmove bleed_id
  all action disable specialmove coldwind_id
  

  Where "bleed_id" and "coldwind_id" correspond to a string or number identifying the moves.

  
  

  Just adding controls over those 2 special moves would likely be celebrated.
  

  
  

  (note this should only influence when the pet code determines whether to execute a specific move).    If the disable bits are never set, no behavior changes.

  
  

  Some posters on this forum raise the game code age as a reason why changes aren't happening.  Hopefully, that isn't true.  The developers associated with common operating systems today would likely disagree with that logic.
  

  
  

  There's definitely more feasibility in a specific change to address a single issue you may be facing.  Incremental change is much more efficient then entire system audits.  So if you can boil it down into a digestible user story, we can take a look. 
  

  
  

  The age of the code base isn't necessarily the problem - it's more so how many hands have been in the repository over the years.  Sometimes systems were implemented in haste, sometimes before functionality was available (Fun fact: before there was a (-) many operations to get -1 were written as 0-1) and sometimes without efficiency at the forefront.  Anyone who has spent a while on project will no doubt evolve their thinking and methodology.  Some of the original stuff I wrote 10+ years ago I look at and go...who wrote this?!...oh...right.  But that's part of learning and growing.
  

  
  

  The section "Useful for at least" may tell a story from a user perspective.  You could boil it down to providing more control over the pet to suit the tactical environment (don't waste moves or mana) and providing a more efficient way of training pet abilities (by avoiding time spent on areas that don't need training).  From a story/lore perspective, most pets are rated greater than superhumanly intelligent, so they should provide more control.  Watch "Absolutely Anything" if you want a funny take on this (the ending).
  

  
  

  Pets with poisoining would be much more useful if this could be disabled, as magery using targets just cure in a hard-loop.  That leads to a frustrating cycle of the pet continuing to re-poison (wasting mana and moves).  You could have it enabled when the fight calls for it.  This would likely be a very popular change.  Slightly different say command syntax just for thought.
  

  
  

  -- disable usage of poisoning on melee hit
  all disable poisoning
  -- re-enable usage of poisoning on melee hit
  all enable poisoning

  
  

  Devils advocate:

  
  

  Code age, code size and complexity, variations in environrments where it runs, number of people in the code, bug backlog, turn-over in the staff and institutional knowledge, non-technical complexity, etc may not deter developers on common operating systems today.  I suspect you can pull off changes like this
• Pawain Posts: 10,200

  June 4 edited June 4

  @ForeverFun ; I think the magics that are not working correctly should be fixed first.  Magery Mastery pets cast some spells on the wrong target.  They do not even cast some damaging magery spells that they should.
  
  Necro pets cast conduit, make the skull circle, but it does not do any damage.
  
  So, until we see all the damage spells work, why are we trying to disable some of them?
  
  Playerskill and players from Cah can tell you which work and do not work.
  
  I think that would be a better place to begin rather than trying to disable spells to get the result you want, on a MM I would disable all the non damaging spells and end up with a pet that does very little damage from spells.  (little damage from spells is what we have now.)
  
  Like I have said before Even with all spells working and choosing to remove some spells a player does not like.  Magery pets would still be in 4th place in the magics category and only be used by players who prefer not to kill things fast.
  
  A better magery pet could be made,  These used to stand away from the target and cast. But tamers did not like that  because the mob would target them. So that was changed to make all pets go to melee range on targets, then use their rotation.
  
  IMO we are at a point where we could make a warrior/tamer where they could use a magery pet that stands back and casts all the spells and they all work correctly. While the player tanks the mob.
  
  When everything works, then modify which spells are cast.
  
  To see what max damage a magery pet can do with spells,  take off all your SDI items (no slayer book) and see how long it takes to kill a Balron or Dread Pirate.  That would be using only the spells you choose,  it will be a very unpleasant experience.  (to get the full experience of a Magery pets damage, cast your spells randomly)
  
  

  Focus on what you can do, not what you can't.
• ForeverFun Posts: 919

  June 4 edited June 4

  You can see some posts from me in the bugs subforum. There's one that recaps the mastery issues on pets.  I'd rather have some way to just turn those on/off, instead of tweaking what they do.  For instance, you'd want a player bard using the discord mastery, not a pet.  Same is true for death ray.  Correct usage of conduit on a pet would also require coordination of the necro spells the pet uses (see the "spells" proposal above).

  
  

  The main reason magery pets don't do much damage, compared to players, is pets can't have slayers applied (there have been separate proposals on posible slayer mechanics for pets).

  
  

  The mixture of spells used is a secondary reason, though my proposal above addresses that simply by allowing unwanted spells to not be used.

  
  

  If you wanted to propose a mechanic for adding SDI to a pet, have at it.
  

  
  

  I got the sense from Kyronix reply that touching the "spells" area may be more tricky.

  
  

  With most pets today, you can get the most total damage output by having the pet tank (even a 125 STR pet), with a mage/warrior dishing most of the damage.

  
  

  Adding more control would add some more fun, etc, too.
• Pawain Posts: 10,200

  June 4 edited June 4

  I think the best slayer for pets idea would be adding a set of either:
  
  Food from plants
  Food from rare fish
  Food from another source
  
  Each variety would have its own slayer.  Each would last X amount of time then wear off.
  
  Gonna have to convince me a working Magery pet is good enough to ask for SDI.
  
  
  Personally I do not think pets need a slayer ability.

  Focus on what you can do, not what you can't.
• PlayerSkillFTW Posts: 625

  June 6 edited June 6

  Pets with Arcane Magic skills (Magery/Necromancy/SW/Mysticism) should have the damage of their spells significantly impacted by their INT, similar to how heavily STR impacts melee damage. This would give reason to make a pet with 700 INT and an Arcane Magic ability, rather than the typical pet with 700 STR and Chiv+AI.
  

  
  

  I suspect the devs are leery of implementing that change though, because it might also affect wild monsters and creatures, making them much more dangerous with magic. Imagine getting spell comboed by an Ancient Lich with 1,045 INT and 130 Eval.
• Pawain Posts: 10,200

  June 6

      Truth.
  
  You just want everyone to have that ugly Serpentine Dragon.
  
  

  Focus on what you can do, not what you can't.
• ForeverFun Posts: 919

  June 6 edited June 6

  PlayerSkillFTW said:

  Pets with Arcane Magic skills (Magery/Necromancy/SW/Mysticism) should have the damage of their spells significantly impacted by their INT...
  

  
  

  I suspect the devs are leery of implementing that change though, because it might also affect wild monsters and creatures, making them much more dangerous with magic. ...

  
  

  I'd be fine with this change, even if it didn't apply to tamed pets.

  
  

  Once upon a time, mere lich lords were feared. Power creep should work for monsters too, not just players, their equipment, and pets.

  
  

  p.s. if you're talking about non Chiv/AI pets. many may be better off with 645 (or less) STR, 700 INT...
  
• shootgun Posts: 321

  June 6 edited June 6

  @Kyronix
  

  
  

  Fixing the current pet mastery bugs might be a better start than adding new functionality. Here is the list I put together back in the day: https://forum.uo.com/discussion/13771/attn-devs-list-of-bugs-with-pets-please-respond

  
  

  There were more items I was going to add before I got banned from the forum. Now I got banned from the game and decided to quit UO I am not interested to take a look at it anymore. May be someone else can take over and keep reporting remaining pet bugs.
  

  
  
  
• Lord_Nythrax Posts: 496

  June 7 edited June 7

  ForeverFun said:
  

  
  

  Once upon a time, mere lich lords were feared. Power creep should work for monsters too, not just players, their equipment, and pets.

  Once upon a time the strongest monster in the game was an ancient wyrm or something. If you're so hungry for a challenge maybe try fighting something that's been in the game for less than 25 years.
• ForeverFun Posts: 919

  June 14

  Some additional notes:

  
  

  1. If a mage with 120 eval int, 120 magery blesses a magery based pet, the magery based pet will fizzle (and waste "moves") casting bless on itself.  it strength of the bless spell may be more desirable to have originating from a player, vs. a pet.
     
  2. If a pet with necromancy uses "wither", the side effects of the area effect spell may not be desirable (fel, hitting positive karma targets, etc).
  3. If a pet with necromancy uses "wither", the (cold) damage is effectively reduced if the target(s) are under the effects of "Corpse skin", another necromancy spell.

  
  

  More reasons that disable controls would be valuable.
• sibble Posts: 189

  June 14 edited June 14

  ForeverFun said:
  

  Once upon a time, mere lich lords were feared. Power creep should work for monsters too, not just players, their equipment, and pets.

  Covetous Level 4 Lich Lords can be spooky
  

  "everything looks stupid" UO feedback 2024
  
• Norry Posts: 536

  June 25

  I like the idea of more crafted pet foods, maybe ones that need alvhemy and cooking to craft lesser or super slayer petfoods, ones that add SDI. Give a new craftable. The item is already there from khaldun.